


Thisbe is the Lioness

by Onlymostydead



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - No Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), Angst, Denial, Gen, Glamorizations of Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Korekiyo Centric, Panic Attacks, Rationalized Abuse, Sister is just mentioned but. A lot., Terminal Illnesses, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27669467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymostydead/pseuds/Onlymostydead
Summary: Shuichi can’t sleep, so he went to the library to find a book...Why can’t anything be that simple?But of course, when he saw Korekiyo curled up around his knees like that, he couldn’t leave him alone...
Relationships: Saihara Shuichi & Shinguji Korekiyo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	Thisbe is the Lioness

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE heed the tags. Also, this fic is MASSIVELY glamorization of abuse. I myself am not glamorizing what he went through, it was awful, but Korekiyo is ~going through it~ SO
> 
> That needed an extra warning, though. 
> 
> ALSO PLEASE AGAIN THE WARNINGS.

“Hey, Kiyo, you okay?”

It wasn’t a rare sight to find Korekiyo in the library at odd hours. The Ultimate Anthropologist was, after all, an avid reader, regularly up researching something or other that had caught his interest late into the night. So seeing him here, at nearly four in the morning? Wasn’t too strange. In fact, it was more bizarre for Shuichi to be here.

But the strange thing was the position he found Korekiyo in.

It was eerie to see the tall, lanky form of his collapsed in a pile of limbs on the floor, curled up around his knees. His long hair hung limp around his shoulders, shielding his face from view. If Shuichi let himself imagine... no, if he let himself really look, Korekiyo was shaking. 

“I... will be alright.” He raised his head, hair falling away. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Couldn’t sleep— came looking for a new book to read.” Shuichi shrugged, sitting down next to him. “But... what’s going on? Seriously, Kiyo, is everything okay?”

The air conditioning unit in the corner whirred away, the only sound in this secluded corner of the library. 

“It is merely... much of the same old things. You have already heard my stories, have you not?” Kiyo chuckled, full and genuine cons tasting so oddly against the sadness in his eyes. “You know the key players. You know the conflict, the struggles, the plot points.”

He took a deep breath. “That doesn’t make your problems any less important.”

“Truly... your caring nature is quite beautiful.”

If that’s what he had to say to accept help, Shuichi would take it. “So, what’s going on?”

He waited another moment, as if to see if someone else was going to show up. Then, looked down before answering.

“I... had a panic attack.” 

You would think, from his reaction to those words, that he had divulged a horrible secret, and not the most obvious truth in the world. His hands shook, gripping right to his uniform. His brows furrowed, head bowing deeper in shame. 

“That’s okay. Is there anything I can...?”

“No. Don’t worry yourself with me, Shuichi.” Korekiyo’s head shot up, eyes wide with panic. “Besides, I-I—“

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, so how can it be important, if I’m not even capable of finishing my sentences properly?” His hands caught in his hair, before brushing it hastily out of his face. “And I’m making excuses. Excuses, yes, for my own weakness. I shouldn’t be allowing myself to sit on this floor in a... in a puddle of shame, you know. I should pull myself together.”

Korekiyo’s words had a kind of bite to them, a kind of sting that Shuichi had grown accustomed to, in periods of self loathing. At first it had seemed like just that, but...

Shuichi clenched his teeth as he asked, “Is that what you would say to yourself, Kiyo, or what your Sister would say?”

Kiyo blinked, golden eyes wide in the dim light of the library. 

“You know the truth.” He whispered. “Whether I answer that way or not is an entirely different question.”

“I know... and it’s okay to lie.”

Korekiyo chuckled. “How far you’ve come from the softhearted boy who condemned liars, all while lying yourself. We all do it to survive, you know.” 

He swallowed. “We’re all just doing what we must to survive.”

Shuichi turned his head away, embarrassed. It was true, he had come a long was, but... it was odd to have it pointed out. Especially in such circumstances. 

“I was reminded of the air conditioning. At the hospital, when I used to care for Sister. And I do miss her terribly.” He sighed, eyes fluttering shut.

The air seemed to go thick and foggy. 

“And I know, in my mind, how what Sister did affected me. How it was abuse. But...” Korekiyo’s hand caressed his face. “She was loving, too. She was more than just what they want me to pretend she was in the Ultimate Therapists office. No one knows who she was.”

“And...” He started, knowing he would regret the question. “Who was she?”

“Everything, Shuichi. She was everything. An impossible force. She was the sun itself.”

There was a ragged, ugly way he took his breath, in how he gathered himself together, hands tugging at his sleeves. 

Falling apart again, just when it seemed like he had it toge— no, just when he was talking about his Sister. 

He fought the shake in his hands once more. 

“And maybe, Shuichi, there was a desperation in her lungs that you could not fathom. The fleeting breaths of a dying woman, panting as she realized her deathbed would become the bed she lost her innocence in. How could she not be urgent? How could she afford to be? She was out of time, out of breath for her lungs—“

He was beginning to hyperventilate.

“She had gotten sick, you know. Sick on top of all the other complications. Pneumonia. That’s what did her in, at the end of things. The fluid in her lungs finalizing her breaths.”

“I...” 

Korekiyo pulled himself together again, brushing his hair away from his face.

“So picture her, now, as who she was. An incredible woman, stolen before her time, skin pale and hair dark, eyes always flickering with a spark that no one else ever held. She was beautiful, you know. More beautiful than I can describe. The sun itself.”

“She...sounds quite lovely.”

“She was. Confined to hospital beds as she was, always dressed in thin, white nightgowns...” He chuckled. “She was angelic. Or ghostly, whichever you prefer— a Yurei, her bony hands and feet limp and lifeless, the blinking lights of the medical equipment her hitodama. How long had she been dead? What is tying here here? Which of those labored breaths was her last? How long was that breathing merely animating a cold skeleton?

“Korekiyo, I don’t—“

“So really, what she did was understandable, don’t you think? It merely shows the best of her circumstances, her humanity. Is it not the most human thing to crave the warmth of another? To reach out and share their warmth?”

Shuichi swallowed, shifting his weight to the side. “I’m... not sure what you meant, for that first bit... and I don’t think I want to for the second half.”

Korekiyo chuckled, holding himself again, his bandaged hands trembling. “What are your goals in life, Shuichi Saihara?”

“W-what?”

“What kinds of aspirations do you possess? You are ultimate detective, are you not? But even small ones. Things that you would like to accomplish before you die— a bucket list, if you will.”

“Well...” 

He could see what he was getting at, now, but with that second half...

The air conditioning purred. The air was still too thick in here, it was hard to breath. Was it always so dusty in here?

“I think mine are kind of like everyone else’s, really. I want to have friends. To be successful. To not have to worry about my future.”

“But what if that very future itself were in jeopardy, those years stolen from before your eyes. What then?”

“I would probably view it completely differently.” Shuichi couldn’t help but think of Kaito, battling similar things with his illness. “I wouldn’t waste time, right? Whatever I wanted to get done... I would get to it.”

Korekiyo smiled. Shuichi couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. He could see the way his eyes narrowed, his cheek rounding into them. It was exactly them answer he wanted. And yet...

How?

“And it that not what she did?”

“Korekiyo, you know that’s not true.” Shuichi argued. “Your sister abused you. That isn’t—“

“What she wanted was different from you. You want success as a detective, perhaps, and acceptance from your friends. But my dear Sister? What she wanted more than anything else in the world... there were two things, and one of them was denied her by her illness.” He sighed, playing with a lock of his hair. “The first was being an anthropologist herself.”

“Right. You told me she got you interesting in anthropology.” 

“She did. But to be an anthropologist is to travel. And thus... she was incapable of fulfilling that dream. And the other—“

“Kiyo, nothing you say is going to make it—“

“She was only fifteen, Shuichi.” 

The words had a haunting quality, hanging in the thick air, making it impossible to inhale. Shuichi swore he would be suffocated. Somehow the age made her...

Real. 

Like a single number gave her flesh and blood.

“She was barely in high school, you know, when she was told she would never leave the hospital again. And it was at that time she began to really change. You see...”

He held himself so tightly still, gripping onto knees. 

The more he looked at it, the more that motion looked like the ghost of a hug.

Never mind— that was sad. 

“All Sister ever wanted was to go to school, since she was often deprived as a child. She wanted to be the, forgive the pop culture reference, though it is anthropology of a modern kind, kind of “popular girl” archetype. To stand out and attract the attention of those around. For women to fear her, for men to crave her.”

Shuichi frowned, looking at the floor.

“No. I want you to really picture her.”

He almost could. A pretty fifteen year old girl, who looked so much like Korekiyo himself, craving the spotlight at a new school. Only fifteen and on top of the world. 

“I...” he stared at the tiles. “With all I know she did to you, I don’t want to.”

“True. But... it it is important to remember that people possess a duality amid nature.” Korekiyo chuckled, low and mysterious. “Picture in your minds eye, a young lady whose frame advertised that fashion model skeletal, whose face was all dewey skin and watchful eyes, the kind that don’t sleep but instead stare into your soul. Tactfully applied makeup and long, dark hair swept across her bare shoulders. Always with her signature red lipstick—“

“She does seem... pretty.”

“She was more than pretty.” He supplied. “Her pull was gravitational. Had Sister gone to school traditionally? She would have had all of the boys she wanted flocking to her, every girl she possibly wanted as an ally would be her friend. She was intelligent, resourceful, beautiful— but that’s enough of that. She wanted the popularity. You understand that part.”

“Y-yeah.” Shuichi nodded. “I do.”

“So she did what she could. I applied her makeup, some days. Others, she merely enjoyed that I wore it. It filled her with pride. I would do her hair, others. We could pretend it was fancier than it was, or that someone other than the nurses would see— and I would compliment her on how beautiful she looked.”

Suddenly, this was feeling a lot sadder. A lot more like... watching a bouquet of roses in a vase slowly wither before they fall apart completely.

“And we read books on anthropology together, still. She enjoyed them thoroughly, even when it was just me reading to her because she was tired from the treatments. The Wife Who didn’t Eat, The Horseflies of Takoshima, Foxes Laugh— all kinds of stories and folktales. Not just Japanese, either. Menthe and Hades, was a favorite of hers. She loved a forbidden romance story, though she complained about how cliche they were to no end.” Kiyo laughed, a personal chuckle at the memory. “I love them too. Romeo always falls for sweet Juliet. Layla and Majnun, Guinevere and Lancelot, Heloise and Abelard— and they are so doomed in the end.”

Silence filled the room.

The air conditioner purred in the corner.

Korekiyo laughed, hollow and metallic. “Yes, doomed indeed.”

Shuichi could feel the pit growing in his stomach. 

“The nurses could tell she was dying, of course, so they provided her with everything she could want... except friendship. There was never any of that to be found, and that was what I lacked.” He frowned. “I could not fill the role of friend, to Sister. But, of course, there was another role I could fill.”

“...you mean—?“

“I did not shy away from becoming my Sister’s lover. It was only natural, of course.”

Shuichi felt sick. Of course?

Of course?

“She wanted a boyfriend, really. A man to sweep her off her feet. I was only eleven, and she was under strict orders not to move too much, but—“

“Korekiyo, you know that’s not right.”

“How?”

Shuichi’s head what spinning. “How? How are you justifying it! She was fifteen and you were eleven what—“

He smiled, raising a hand to his masked mouth. “It was only natural for me to become her lover. As Sigyn cared for Loki during his bondage, so was I by her side every step of her illness... and now she is with me, though it be strangely in the reverse.”

“...”

“I was the only option, was I not?”

Shuichi shook his head. “You never should have been an option.”

“Why not?”

“It isn’t right, Kiyo.” He clenched his hand tight. “For anyone, dying or not. Touching an eleven year old, a kid... that isn’t right for anyone.”

“Interesting.” Korekiyo raised an eyebrow. “So you would label that behavior as evil, correct?”

“Yes. Roughly.”

“But would you call her an evil person?” He leaned closer, yellow eyes bright and alert and...

Shuichi could feel the panic rising in his chest.

“That... isn’t a good way to describe people. Good, or bad— people don’t fit those categories.”

Korekiyo smiled, leaning back once more. “Precisely. You must consider the duality of character. For example, have you heard of Yama-uba?”

“Is that... another mythological creature?”

“Precisely. In some areas,they are considered beautiful women who live in the forest and repel ammunition when shot at. Not good nor even, merely existent. Others, they give gifts to a good child and punishment to a bad child, teaching a valuable lesson. Still others, they are cannibalistic creatures that disguise themselves as human to eat human children. Clearly an evil, vile creature. And that is only a small fraction of the stories that exist.”

“And... what’s your point?”

“That some things are merely in people’s natures, Shuichi. And actions are not always as they seem. Often there are others, good or bad, accompanying them— other sides to the story.” He smiled. “Good people do selfish, self servicing things constantly. But why is that so wrong? We all do, so why is it different?”

“B-because there are things that are wrong on a base level.” Shuichi pointed out plainly. “Touching kids is never going to be okay, even if a kid is your ‘only option’ so to speak.”

Korekiyo shrugged. “And that is your point of morality, which may differ from others. Still, how beautiful it is that you’ve clung to it all this time! Truly admirable!”

“...because it’s wrong.”

“In this case... I believe circumstances allow it. Normally I would agree with you— child molestation is absolutely wrong.”

He raised an eyebrow, but decided to drop that point. “And what did you mean earlier, in people’s natures?”

“Precisely that.” Korekiyo nodded. “My Sister as a very particular person. She got what she wanted. So when she wanted me... I had no objections.”

Something in Shuichi’s heart ached. 

“Could you have objected?”

“What?”

“Could you have objected?”

For once, Korekiyo looked stunned. He swallowed, picking at the bandaging on his fingers. “Of course. She told me she wasn’t forcing me or anything.”

He didn’t sound convinced, but...

“She wasn’t forcing me.” He said again, with more confidence. “But the circumstances she was under—“

“Kiyo—“

“She was dying, Shuichi.”

“That still isn’t a good reason to have done it.” Shuichi pointed out. “Would you have agreed to do things if she were well?”

He blinked. “Well...”

“If she wasn’t sick, would you be justifying what she did right now?”

Korekiyo exhaled quietly, hands worrying at the edges of his sleeves. 

“So it’s all just circumstance.”

“Indeed... You have a point, Shuichi Saihara.” He fiddled with his locket. “And now... despite Sigyn’s best attempts, I feel the venom on my face.”

“You know, it’s—“ Shuichi sighed, laying a tentative hand on his knee. “She abused you. You know that, and it’s okay to say it.”

Silence.

Korekiyo hummed, staring at the hand. “And yet... if I am a pagan, she is my god. I would sacrifice anything, my very body to her temple, if it meant peace and beauty be given to her name.” 

He leaned a little closer, in toward the touch. “I have worshipped her in perfect devotion for all my life. To begin blasphemy now is not an easy task, Shuichi. Even if...”

“Even if what?”

Korekiyo’s eyes fluttered shut, swallowing. “Even if you are correct.”

“I’m...” Shuichi wrapped a gentle arm around him, trying to navigate the awkward angle they were at. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She is, after all, my goddess. My everything. My Helen of Troy, and I am but Paris hoping to bring her back to me, someway, somehow. The Thisbe to my Pyramus, but still we whisper through the crack of deaths door, hoping to reunite.”

He blinked. “...right.” 

“And yet... I wonder, sometimes... never mind.”

“Wonder about what?”

“I wonder if Thisbe truly stabbed herself in the garden, or if she laughed that beautiful laugh, long hair flowing in the breeze. If she replaced her bloody veil, torn from the lions maw, and let it cover part of that luminous face. She glows in the moonlight, after all. Her footsteps light, nightgown flowing around her ankles.” Korekiyo’s hands shook. “I wonder if Pyramus’s blood even touched that nightgown— if the carnage of the body occurred to her beyond slight misfortune. Or perhaps he was replaceable.”

“I wonder if Helen of Troy rejoiced in all of the carnage or war as she rejoiced in the fall of the Trojans— if she laughed at Paris’s death. If it brought her joy. Would she have killed him herself, if given the chance? Would she have driven the dagger?”

“Kiyo—“

“If a Yama-uba, separate from the scenario I had posed before, encountered the two of us, I know I would surely be the evil child because I do not know how to behave properly. I am out of line, I speak poorly, I interrupt, I stutter—“

He bit his lip.

“And she... she was always the perfect one. The one who followed every rule. The perfect one. She was every boys dream, every girls friend. How could I not do anything for her?”

“Korekiyo, you’re not—“

He held up a finger. “And— and if the The Wife Who didn’t Eat is a story of punishment... what have I done wrong? Am I so selfish, or-or—?”

Shuichi swallowed, already feeling the outcome. “Well... what’s the story?”

Kiyo blinked, and he realized that it was likely clearing tears. “A long, long time ago, a man, a cooper, specifically, for ease of storytelling, complained aloud to himself, saying; ‘My, I wish I had a wife! And one who doesn’t eat.’ But the cooper lived alone, so he went back inside his home.”

“However, as you may have guessed, the man was overheard, and he was soon met by a knocking on his door. A woman like that which he had never seen appeared before him there. She was strange, but nonetheless, he opened the door, and she asked:”

“Are you the cooper? Is this where you live? Are you not looking for a wife who does not eat? Because I do not eat, and I am a hard worker. Please, may I become your wife?”

“And the cooper refused, but still she begged until he allowed it. Surely, she did work well, and she did eat no meals, but very quickly the cooper began to realize: his rice supply was dropping excessively quickly. He was being drained for everything he had. And so he did what any rational person would do...” Korekiyo leaned in. “He spied on his wife, to discover her secrets.”

“Now, the story is longer, and the point is longer as well, but she begins scooping rice into a pot, measure after measure, cooking it up and gobbling it down through an extra hole in the middle of her head. And the story goes on— he tells her to make a tub, which she catches him in. The cooper barely escapes, and she becomes blinded from some iris and mugwort. But listen to me, Shuichi—“

Shuichi turned his head in, listening intently. 

“Who committed the first wrong?”

“...the cooper.” He decided. “He was selfish.”

Korekiyo smiled, nodding. “And the monster that resulted taught him a lesson— to cherish a wife, not treat her like a commodity.”

“Yeah. That makes sense.”

“The wife, who is a Yama-haha, is there to take advantage of the cooper. To selfishly strip everything she wants from him, because he was selfish, and she can. It’s just her nature.” 

Shuichi nodded solemnly, feeling the darkness creep in.

“It’s just her nature.”

Silence. 

“Her nature, to take, and take, and demand, and strip everything away until there’s nothing left.”

The air conditioner whirring away. 

Because Korekiyo’s earlier question, “What have I done wrong?” Still rang a little too loud.

“Of course, there was only so much I could do, in the end.” Korekiyo swallowed. His throat sounded dry. 

Shuichi looked at him with concern, brown raised. 

He merely sighed, shaking his head. “Her breaths were already her last ones, no matter what I did.”

Oh. That kind of guilt.

“Already practically a corpse. Alive but... just barely.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Kiyo.”

“She was the sun, after all.”

He stared off into space, eyes filled with a kind of shattered confusion and denial that broke Shuichi’s heart.

“And I, Icarus.”

Silence.

The air conditioning whirred.

“She’s still with me.” He said, faintly.

Shuichi nodded. “Of course.”

“...Thisbe is the lioness.”

“I know.”

So they sat together in the library, at about four in the morning. And if Korekiyo rested his head on Shuichi’s shoulder, the only witnesses were the books, the dust, and the sad little air conditioning unit in the corner.

**Author's Note:**

> Congratulations, you made it to the end of my kin vent! You can find my on tumblr at supertinydom, or Tiktok at onlymosyted or kinnietakaishimaru! 
> 
> I’ll accept request ideas, but no promises—
> 
> Comments are love <3


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